same-sex marriagethe practice of marriage between two men or between two women. Although same-sex marriage has been regulated through law, religion, and custom in most countries of the world, the legal and social responses have ranged from celebration on the one hand to criminalization on the other.

Some scholars, most notably the Yale professor and historian John Boswell (1947–94), have argued that same-sex unions were recognized by the Roman Catholic Church in medieval Europe, although others have disputed this claim. Scholars and the general public became increasingly interested in the issue during the late 20th century, a period when attitudes toward homosexuality and laws regulating homosexual behaviour were liberalized, particularly in western Europe and the United States.

The issue of same-sex marriage frequently sparked emotional and political clashes between supporters and opponents. By the early 21st century, several jurisdictions, both at the national and subnational levels, had legalized same-sex marriage; in other jurisdictions, constitutional measures were adopted to prevent same-sex marriages from being sanctioned, or laws were enacted that refused to recognize such marriages performed elsewhere. That the same act was evaluated so differently by various groups indicates its importance as a social issue in the early 21st century; it also demonstrates the extent to which cultural diversity persisted both within and among countries. For tables on same-sex marriage around the world, in the United States, and in Australia, see below.

Cultural ideals of marriage and sexual partnership

Perhaps the earliest systematic analyses of marriage and kinship were conducted by the Swiss legal historian Johann Jakob Bachofen (1861) and the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1871); by the mid-20th century an enormous variety of marriage and sexual customs across cultures had been documented by such scholars. Notably, they found that most cultures expressed an ideal form of marriage and an ideal set of marriage partners, while also practicing flexibility in the application of those ideals.

Among the more common forms so documented were common-law marriage; morganatic marriage, in which titles and property do not pass to children; exchange marriage, in which a sister and a brother from one family marry a brother and a sister from another; and group marriages based on polygyny (co-wives) or polyandry (co-husbands). Ideal matches have included those between cross-cousins, between parallel cousins, to a group of sisters (in polygyny) or brothers (in polyandry), or between different age sets. In many cultures the exchange of some form of surety, such as bride service, bridewealth, or dowry, has been a traditional part of the marriage contract.

Cultures that openly accepted homosexuality, of which there were many, generally had nonmarital categories of partnership through which such bonds could be expressed and socially regulated. Conversely, other cultures essentially denied the existence of same-sex intimacy, or at least deemed it an unseemly topic for discussion of any sort.

Religious and secular expectations of marriage and sexuality

Over time the historical and traditional cultures originally recorded by the likes of Bachofen and Morgan slowly succumbed to the homogenization imposed by colonialism. Although a multiplicity of marriage practices once existed, conquering nations typically forced local cultures to conform to colonial belief and administrative systems. Whether Egyptian, Vijayanagaran, Roman, Ottoman, Mongol, Chinese, European, or other, empires have long fostered (or, in some cases, imposed) the widespread adoption of a relatively small number of religious and legal systems. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the perspectives of one or more of the world religions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity—and their associated civil practices were often invoked during national discussions of same-sex marriage.

Perhaps because systems of religion and systems of civil authority often reflect and support each other, the countries that had reached consensus on the issue by the early 2000s tended to have a single dominant religious affiliation across the population; many such places had a single, state-sponsored religion. This was the case in both Iran, where a strong Muslim theocracy had criminalized same-sex intimacy, and Denmark, where the findings of a conference of Evangelical Lutheran bishops (representing the state religion) had helped smooth the way for the first national recognition of same-sex relationships through registered partnerships. In other cases, the cultural homogeneity supported by the dominant religion did not result in the application of doctrine to the civic realm but may nonetheless have fostered a smoother series of discussions among the citizenry: Belgium and Spain had legalized same-sex marriage, for instance, despite official opposition from their predominant religious institution, the Roman Catholic Church.

The existence of religious pluralities within a country seems to have had a less determinate effect on the outcome of same-sex marriage debates. In some such countries, including the United States, consensus on this issue was difficult to reach. On the other hand, the Netherlands—the first country to grant equal marriage rights to same-sex couples (2001)—was religiously diverse, as was Canada, which did so in 2005.

Most of the world religions have at some points in their histories opposed same-sex marriage for one or more of the following stated reasons: homosexual acts violate natural law or divine intentions and are therefore immoral; passages in sacred texts condemn homosexual acts; and religious tradition recognizes only the marriage of one man and one woman as valid. In the early 21st century, however, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism all spoke with more than one voice on this issue. Orthodox Judaism opposed same-sex marriage, while the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative traditions allowed for it. Most Christian denominations opposed it, while the United Church of Christ, the United Church of Canada, and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) took a more favourable stand or allowed individual churches autonomy in the matter. The Unitarian Universalist churches and the gay-oriented Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches fully accepted same-sex marriage. Hinduism, without a sole leader or hierarchy, allowed some Hindus to accept the practice while others were virulently opposed. The three major schools of Buddhism—Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana—stressed the attainment of enlightenment as a basic theme; most Buddhist literature therefore viewed all marriage as a choice between the two individuals involved.

Sexuality is but one of many areas where religious and civic authority interact; definitions of the purpose of marriage is another. In one view, the purpose of marriage is to ensure successful procreation and child rearing. In another, marriage provides a—and perhaps “the”—fundamental building block of stable communities, with procreation as an incidental by-product. A third perspective holds that marriage is an instrument of societal domination and so is not desirable. A fourth is that relationships between consenting adults should not be regulated by the government. Although most religions subscribe to just one of these beliefs, it is not uncommon for two or more viewpoints to coexist within a given society.

Proponents of the first view believe that the primary goal of marriage is to provide a relatively uniform social institution through which to produce and raise children. In their view, because male and female are both necessary for procreation, the privileges of marriage should be available only to opposite-sex couples. In other words, partnerships involving sexual intimacy should have at least a notional potential for procreation. From this perspective, the movement to legally recognize same-sex marriage is a misguided attempt to deny the social, moral, and biological distinctions that foster the continued existence of society and so should be discouraged.

Because this view considers biological reproduction a sort of social obligation, its advocates tended to frame individuals’ legal and moral commitment to one another as a matter of genetic relatedness. In cases of inheritance or custody, for instance, they generally defined the parents’ legal duties to their biological children differently than those to their stepchildren. Among groups who feel strongly that same-sex marriage is problematic, there is also a tendency for the legal relationships of spouses, parents, and children to converge. Typically, these societies provide for the automatic inheritance of property between spouses, and between parents and children, and allow these close kin to co-own property without joint ownership contracts. In addition, such societies often allow close kin a variety of automatic privileges such as sponsoring immigration visas or making medical decisions for one another; for those with whom one shares no close kin relationship, these privileges typically require legal interventions. Such legal circumventions are usually more difficult for, and in some cases even prohibited to, same-sex couples.

In contrast to the procreative model of marriage, advocates of the legalization of same-sex marriage generally believed that committed partnerships involving sexual intimacy are valuable because they draw people together to a singular degree and in singular ways. In this view, such relationships are intrinsically worthy while also quite distinct from (though not incompatible with) activities associated with the bearing or raising of children. Sexual partnerships are one of a number of factors that bond adults together into stable household units. These households, in turn, form the foundation of a productive society—a society in which, albeit incidentally, children, elders, and others who may be relatively powerless are likely to be protected.

From this perspective, the devaluation of same-sex intimacy is immoral because it constitutes arbitrary and irrational discrimination, thereby damaging the community. Most same-sex marriage advocates further held that international human rights legislation provided a universal franchise to equal treatment under the law. Thus, prohibiting a specific group from the full rights of marriage was illegally discriminatory. For advocates of the community-benefit perspective, all the legal perquisites associated with heterosexual marriage should be available to any committed couple.

In contrast to these positions, self-identified “queer” theorists and activists sought to deconstruct the paired oppositional categories common in discussions of biology, gender, and sexuality (e.g., male-female, man-woman, gay-straight) and to replace these with categories or continua that they believed better reflect the actual practices of humanity. Queer advocates contended that marriage is an institution of “hetero-normality” that forces individuals into ill-fitting cultural categories and demonizes those who refuse to accept those categories. For these reasons, they maintained that consensual intimacy between adults should not be regulated and that marriage should be disestablished as a cultural institution.

A fourth view, libertarianism, had different premises from queer theory but somewhat similar ramifications; it proposed that government powers should be strictly limited, generally to the tasks of maintaining civil order, infrastructure, and defense. For libertarians, marriage legislation of any sort—either the legalization or the prohibition of same-sex marriage—fell outside of the role of government and was unacceptable. As a result, many libertarians believed that marriage should be “privatized” (i.e., removed from government regulation) and that citizens should be able to form partnerships of their choosing.

Same-sex marriage and the law

Societies have resolved the intertwined issues of sexuality, reproduction, and marriage in myriad ways. Their responses regarding the morality, desirability, and administrative perquisites of same-sex partnerships have been equally diverse. Notably, however, by the beginning of the 21st century most countries opted for one of only three legal resolutions to these intersecting problems: to ignore same-sex partnerships, to criminalize them, or to grant them a status similar or equal to that of heterosexual marriage. Many countries, including the United States, have yet to reach a consensus on these issues. (See also marriage law.)

As noted above, many societies traditionally chose to ignore the issue of same-sex marriage by treating same-sex intimacy as a subject unsuitable for discussion. Many of these jurisdictions, as well as those that actively criminalize same-sex unions, contended that homosexuality and lesbianism are mental disorders and built their public policies on this premise. In treating same-sex desire as a psychiatric illness, these cultures moved same-sex intimacy and marriage from the realm of civil regulations (the domain of contract law) to that of public safety (the domain of criminal law). In such societies, the possibility of arrest or institutionalization further reinforced taboos on same-sex intimacy and discussions thereof, typically driving such activities underground.

International

In the early 21st century the countries that most seriously penalized same-sex relations tended to be in deeply conservative regions of the world, particularly Islamic theocracies and some parts of Asia and Africa. They often proscribed behaviours that other countries viewed as subject to moral, rather than legal, regulation. The judicial systems of many predominantly Muslim countries, for instance, invoke Islamic law (Sharīʿah) in a wide range of contexts. A variety of sexual or quasi-sexual acts, usually including same-sex intimacy, were criminalized in these countries, and the penalties for these acts could be as severe as execution. However, in a notable show of support for transgender individuals in the late 20th century, Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a legal decree, or fatwa, supporting gender-reassignment surgery when undertaken by individuals who wished to “fix” their physiology and thus become heterosexual in the eyes of the law.

In contrast, the acceptance of same-sex partnerships was particularly apparent in northern Europe and in countries with cultural ties to that region. In 1989 Denmark became the first country to establish registered partnerships—an attenuated version of marriage—for same-sex couples. Soon thereafter similar laws, generally using specific vocabulary (e.g., civil union, civil partnership, domestic partnership, registered partnership) to differentiate same-sex unions from heterosexual marriages, went into effect in Norway (1993), Sweden (1995), Iceland (1996), the Netherlands (1998), and elsewhere in Europe, including the United Kingdom (2005) and Ireland (2011).

Interestingly—and perhaps as a reflection of tensions between the marriage-for-procreation and marriage-for-community-good positions discussed above—many European countries initially prevented same-sex couples from adoption and artificial insemination; by 2007, however, most of these restrictions had been removed. Outside Europe, some jurisdictions also adopted some form of same-sex partnership rights; Israel recognized common-law same-sex marriage in the mid-1990s (the Israeli Supreme Court further ruled in 2006 that same-sex marriages performed abroad should be recognized), while same-sex civil unions were legalized in New Zealand in 2004 (effective 2005), in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul also in 2004, and in Mexico City in 2006 (effective 2007). In 2007 Uruguay became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex civil unions; the legislation became effective in 2008.

Some jurisdictions opted to specifically apply the honorific of “marriage” to same-sex as well as heterosexual unions. In 2000 the Netherlands revised its same-sex partnership law and the following year became the first country to offer marriage to same-sex couples; several other European countries subsequently legalized gay marriage. In 2003 the European Union mandated that all of its members pass laws recognizing the same-sex marriages of fellow EU countries. As countries began to legalize same-sex partnerships, public opinion, particularly in Europe, began to shift in favour of full marriage rights for same-sex unions. For example, by the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, a Eurobarometer poll (carried out by the European Commission) found that four-fifths of the citizens of the Netherlands felt that same-sex marriage should be legal throughout Europe; in a further seven countries (Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, and the Czech Republic), a majority held a similar view. Nevertheless, in other parts of Europe, particularly central and southern Europe, support for same-sex marriage was quite low, often with fewer than one-fifth of those polled favouring legalization. By the following decade, polls indicated that roughly one-half of British citizens approved of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom, and in early 2013 Parliament took a step in that direction with the passage of a bill in the House of Commons.

In 2005 Canada became the first country outside Europe to pass legislation legalizing same-sex marriage. In 2012 the validity of thousands of same-sex marriages in the country was briefly called into question when the Canadian government asserted that a nonresident same-sex couple married in Canada could not be granted a divorce because they were not legally married. Because the marriage was not recognized by the couple’s home countries, Department of Justice officials argued, it was not valid. Responding to international protests, the government clarified its official position by stating that all same-sex marriages performed in Canada were legal and that existing divorce law would be amended to accommodate nonresident couples.

South Africa (2006) and Argentina (2010) were the first African and Latin American countries, respectively, to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2009 Mexico City moved beyond same-sex civil unions when it legalized gay marriage. Soon after the law went into effect in 2010, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional and that all states in the country must recognize same-sex marriages performed in Mexico City.

United States

In the United States the question of whether couples of the same sex should be allowed to marry has roiled politics since at least 1993. In that year the Supreme Court of Hawaii heard a case in which the plaintiffs claimed that the state’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples abrogated those individuals’ rights to equal treatment under the law. The state, in turn, argued that it had a compelling interest in preventing same-sex marriage, as that practice would inherently damage the public good. The court found for the plaintiffs, basing its argument on the law’s absence of a clear definition of who might or might not participate in such a partnership. Soon after this finding, Hawaiian legislators added such a definition to the state constitution and thus made moot the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex partners.

Many Americans felt that the Hawaii court decision represented a serious threat to social stability, and in 1996 the U.S. Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act. This legislation declared that same-sex marriages would not be recognized for federal purposes, such as the award of Social Security benefits normally afforded to a surviving spouse or employment-based benefits for the partners of federal employees. The act also restated existing law by providing that no U.S. state or territory was required to recognize marriages from elsewhere when it had strong policies to the contrary. Within a decade of the federal act’s passage, almost all the states had enacted laws or constitutional amendments declaring variously that marriage was legally defined as a heterosexual institution, that same-sex marriages from other states would not be recognized, or that same-sex marriage was contrary to the public policies of the state.

Nonetheless, some states moved toward the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships. In 1999 the Vermont Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples were entitled under the state constitution to the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples; shortly thereafter the state legislature enacted a law creating “civil unions,” which conferred all the rights and responsibilities of marriage but not the name. In 2003 California enacted a similar statute, calling the relationships “domestic partnerships.”

Also in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violated the state constitution; the court gave the state six months to comply with its order to remedy the situation. The state soon began to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, but these were quickly challenged and their legal status over the long term remained uncertain. Officials in some smaller jurisdictions, notably San Francisco, joined the controversy in early 2004 by issuing marriage licenses in defiance of local prohibitions; these licenses were later found to be invalid. Subsequently, several other states and Washington, D.C., either established same-sex civil unions or adopted jurisdictionwide policies that accorded some spousal rights to same-sex couples.

Early in 2008 the Supreme Courts of two states—California and Connecticut—struck down state laws limiting marriage to the union between a man and a woman. Later in 2008 the voters in California passed a referendum, Proposition 8, that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 subsequently was ruled unconstitutional in federal court in August 2010 on the grounds that the prohibition of same-sex marriage violated the due process and equal protection clauses. Although advocates of the referendum quickly sought to contest the decision, it was upheld by a federal appeals court in February 2012. Referenda similar to California’s Proposition 8 were approved in Arizona and Florida in 2008 and in North Carolina in 2012.

In April 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court overturned a state law that barred gay marriage, and soon afterward the legislatures of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage—though in November 2009 Maine voters repealed the law. By 2011 Washington, D.C., and New York state had enacted similar legislation. In early 2012 bills allowing for same-sex marriage were passed by legislatures in Maryland and Washington state. Subsequent challenges to the laws made their implementation contingent on the results of ballot referenda, and in November voters in both states affirmed the laws. As the electorate in Maine simultaneously reversed its previous decision, the three states became the first in the country to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

Broadly reflecting the community-benefit rhetoric noted above, many American legal scholars and same-sex marriage advocates developed arguments that the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed the fundamental right to marry. Opposition arguments broadly reflected the procreative position and frequently invoked biblical exegeses or other religious doctrine to support claims that marriage, strictly defined, should be available only to heterosexual couples. Advocates of both perspectives cited various and conflicting sociological studies in defense of their claims. At the beginning of the 21st century a clear majority of the U.S. population opposed same-sex marriage, but by 2010 about half of the population supported legalization, and many of those opposed were open to the creation of legally recognized partnerships for same-sex couples.

In 2012, as public debate on the issue persisted, two significant events occurred at the federal level. Pres. Barack Obama, who during his initial years in office had endorsed only civil unions for same-sex couples, in May became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage. In December the U.S. Supreme Court announced that the following year it would hear challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act and to Proposition 8; oral arguments in two separate cases were held in March 2013.

Some U.S. states also addressed the issue of gay adoption. Mississippi and Utah, for instance, prohibited adoption by same-sex couples. In 2008, however, a Florida circuit court ruled that a state law prohibiting gay adoption was unconstitutional, and two years later an Arkansas circuit court judge overturned a 2008 referendum result that had banned unmarried couples in that state from adopting or fostering children.

The future of same-sex marriage

At the turn of the 21st century it was clear that the evolution of rights for same-sex couples depended to a great extent upon the interplay of a country’s institutional forces. In parliamentary unitary systems, such as those of the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom, for example, legislatures (and the executives derived from them) were instrumental in the success or failure of such laws. In other countries, particularly those with federal political systems and strong judiciaries, such as Canada, South Africa, and the United States, the courts played a vital role. For yet another group of polities, such as Switzerland and many U.S. states, institutional rules enabled voters to take a direct role in the passage or rejection of legislation.

In countries where consensus has yet to be reached on this issue, the debate is unlikely to be resolved quickly or easily. In some parts of the world, such as those plagued by war or natural disasters, same-sex marriage is simply not an urgent matter. In others, the broad spectrum of notions about sexuality and the purpose of marriage is compounded by national pluralism and a tendency for secularism and religiosity to intersect in complex and unexpected ways.

Same-sex marriage around the world

The table provides a list of countries that have legalized same-sex marriage, as well as selected countries that offer some other legal status for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage in the United States

The table provides a list of U.S. states that have legalized same-sex marriage, as well as states that offer some other legal status for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage in Australia

The table provides a list of Australian states and territories with de jure legal status for same-sex couples.